mumbling to himself.

Charley prompted him. "So you decided to strike out for yourself, about
five years ago."

"Yes, I do so. By then, you see, I had gotten to understand the desert
loneliness. I loved it and I sold myself to the desert, body and soul.
All I asked was to wander about on her magnificent barren bosom. It
seemed to me I was entirely happy. But one day I found a little young
burro stuck in a crevice in a blind canyon. Evidently he had been
abandoned by an Indian. Me, I climb down in the crevice and I tie his
heels so he can't kick and with my geologist's pick and hammer I work so
carefully all day till I get him out. Why such toil? Because I find when
I look into Peter's deep eyes that I am lonely--lonely beyond the power
of thought or word to describe. And Peter, from that day to this, has
never left me, day or night."

"You are in excellent health again, Mr. von Minden," said Ernest. "Don't
you plan ever to return to the Vaterland?"

"Yes! Yes!" cried Crazy Dutch, "but only when I can return with an
empire in my hand for my Kaiser."

"Hoch!" said Gustav softly, "Hoch!"

"Hoch!" Roger and Ernest took up the exclamation with a laugh and a wave
of their pipes, and Charley joined them, smiling. Von Minden looked
deeply pleased.

"Yes! Yes!" he cried. "You all are good children, properly educated,
ready to understand Germany as the citizens of no other country. You all
speak German? Yes! And you all know German literature and music to be
the best. Yes, ah, these great universities and high schools, they are
doing their work wonderfully."

"If I fall down all together in getting my plant funded in this country,
I'm going to Germany with it," said Roger abruptly.

"No, you aren't!" cried Charley, quickly; "I love Germany too, but
America comes first."

Ernest rose with a sigh. "That may be, but with me, bed comes first."

"You will not be cross the next time we meet, eh?" asked Crazy Dutch as
the men made their adieux.

"I'll try not to be!" replied Roger, not too enthusiastically.

When they had crawled into their cots, an hour later, Roger said: "Ern,
do you realize that we haven't a drop of crude oil for the absorber
flow?"

"Sure, I do," replied Ernest. "I've been wondering for days what we
would do about it, but until I had a suggestion, I didn't want to bring
the matter up."

"How much money do you think the Dean can get for the laboratory
equipment?" asked Roger.

"Well, I hope at